Dead Of Night!

Dead of Night was one of the myriad reprint titles Marvel Comics unleashed upon the world in the 70's. The series harvested from among mountains of vintage horror stories from the ancient Atlas days of the 1950's. But when a new cover was not crafted in total, often the vintage work which still held up quite well was altered. A grand example is the cover above for the third issue by John Severin and his sister Marie Serverin in a collaboration which spanned seventeen years.

Here's the original John Powers Severin effort for a 1957 issue of Mystic. Note how the apparitions which are slithering out of the sewers have been given a more corporeal  by Marie in the revised 1974 version, turning the ghosts into the then somewhat more trendy muck monsters like Man-Thing and DC's Swamp Thing.

The trick is turned again, this time on the second issue of Dead of Night. Mirthful Marie added some dripping clawed hands seemingly belonging to some monster lurching out of a some swamp or lake or river for something aquatic.

Much different in tone and character than the ghostly paws seen in the Harry Anderson original for Marvel Tales #125 from 1954. Apparently transparent ghosts were not sufficiently scary in the Bronze Age, not when one could evoke a very motley swamp beast.

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